Phantasmagoria
by deifiedrogue
Summary: Severus senses the Dark Lord's return as dreams begin to meld with reality.


_Blackness. Panting. A thick, dark serpent coils around his body, twisting, twisting as he writhes, tangling his limbs. Damp, hot, sweltering as a jungle. Blinding white fire singes through his veins._ Burning _. Such_ heat _. Such_ pain _. Skin is flayed back, and lightning strikes bone-deep into his tender inner forearm. He jerks back—and finds himself tangled in blankets, mewling in his throat and clutching his left arm to his body, rocking slightly. He lays there, curled up, panting, shaking, until the black dredges of the nightmare begin to seep back into the depths of his mind. His breathing begins to slow. He gulps in less frantic gasps, but still erratically as his heart batters the inside of his ribcage. He chokes, then gags, and finally vomits over the side of the bed._

It had been nine weeks, nine long weeks, since this began. He crawled out of bed, careful to avoid stepping in the vomit, and weaved his way to the lavatory. The steps had become almost routine now, the vivid nightmares and the sickness that followed them. He spat in the sink, trying to rid his mouth of the bitter taste, and began to clean himself up, running the cold water, cupping it in his hands, bringing it to his face. He let the water trickle slowly over his feverish skin, and kept his hands over his eyes and mouth for a moment, breathing deeply. He didn't want to look at himself right now. He didn't want to make a sound, because if he did it would come out in a whimper or a sob.

He could still feel his inner forearm stinging, as if the wound were fresh instead of just a scar. He resisted looking at that as well, instead reaching for a dry washcloth and pressing it to his face. _Oh god_ , if he never had to open his eyes again. But it didn't make a difference anyway. The memories were seared into his consciousness as surely as the Mark was seared into his skin, and they still burned like new. Even when he closed his eyes, there was no escaping it.

He dropped the washcloth onto the floor and gripped the sides of the sink, glanced up at the grimy mirror, and flinched. His skin was sickly and waxen, and his eyes stared back at him with a dead black emptiness, strung as a reanimated corpse. His gaze trailed down his torso and caught sight of a sliver of darkness etched into the side of his left forearm—but it looked darker than the last time he'd looked at it, which seemed to collapse his lungs for a moment. Gradually, he turned his forearm so that it was exposed to the scrutiny of the mirror, and pretended not to see the outline growing clearer.

He staggered out of the lavatory and back into the bedroom, finding his bed in disarray and his nightshirt lying on the floor. He must have stripped himself in his sleep, in the feverish heat of the nightmare. Of the _memory_ that kept repeating itself over and over again every night.

It had been nine weeks. And every night had been the same—the same horror relived again and again, only for him to be jolted awake in his dungeon quarters in the year 1994, far from that black night over a decade ago and still feeling as though it had just occurred, as though he had been Initiated once more into the fold he had now sworn himself to betray. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of the time, the day, the year, even where he was when he woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes ages seemed to pass before he could remember.

He rubbed his face with his hands and tried not to think for a moment. His eyes burned and his head was swimming with exhaustion, as it had been for the last nine weeks. Never-ending. If only he could sleep, just _sleep_. He bit his tongue before he could let out the dry sob caught in his throat. He was just so _tired_ , if only he could _sleep_. He staggered slightly as the room tilted, and collapsed back down onto the bed, burying his face in his hands. He let out a soft moan, which the blackness seemed to swallow whole. _Please, let me sleep_ , he begged, if only to the darkness itself.

He crawled to the middle of the bed and curled up on his side, cradling his knees. For awhile, he just laid there. When he started shivering violently—from the cold or from dread or exhaustion, he couldn't tell—he pulled the blankets up around his body, wrapping himself in a thick cocoon and burying his face in the folds. If he could only sleep and awaken from it a new man, in a new body, without burning dark scars or horror-scalded memories arising in the cloak of nightmares, then he would crawl his way out, tooth and claw. If it took years of scraping, he would escape.


End file.
